“Quirky science shorts”, part of the Imagine Science Film Festival, contained 12 really interesting short films based around science. NN was there loud and proud as you can see in the post by Eva, who is definitely not blue and flask-shaped.

The movie Naming Pluto, directed by Ginita Jiminez, was interesting, and not just for the joy of seeing an unfamiliar New York crowd meet veritable institution Sir Patrick Moore. It also involved an interview with the incredibly sweet 89 year old Venetia Burney Phair, who poured a really good looking and robust cup of tea from a delicate china pot as she explained how, at the age of 11, she suggested the name Pluto over breakfast. The movie followed Venetia Burney Phair as she went to view Pluto, a tiny speck, for the first time. The movie was really fun and funny in a humane way. But one of the cutest moments was a young boy’s look of absolute awe at the idea that Pluto had been named by someone of similar age. But, there it was again….an audible hiss from the audience upon mention of the demotion of ye olde miserably cold iceball from planet status. Bah humbug I don’t understand why people are so attached to it, but I enjoyed the movie and desolate as it is, Pluto seems destined to hold a fond place in the public imagination.

Ventured out of the city yesterday to the New York State Sheep and Wool Fair for a taste of rural idyll. And there was biology everywhere. From the black goat that scored 2.6 for his “reproductives” that then showed off his “reproductive”, to a full on display of the domestically selected variation that forms the argument underlying chapter one of, well, you know that book that was about to enter from stage left 150 years ago.

Many animals yield coats, that, with the aid of needles and friction, can be turned into a nice shawl or toe socks, and many prime specimens were on display here. Alpacas, llama, rabbits, goats (cashmere yielding!) and sheep in many forms and varieties. And a lot of breeding related discussion. I was surprised when an alpaca breeder told us that alpaca/llama hybrids (there were some on display) are fertile! The male llamas also went a little crazy when some females were led by. There were also signs certifying some sheep as “Excellent”, “Good” or “Unacceptable” for true breeding. One of the unacceptables was understandably a bit out of control. Judging was also slightly demystified, as the judge explained how three beautifully glossy-coated black-haired goats differed in the flatness of their backs, their hindquarters and coats and discussed their fleece yields. I’ve also been reading lately about James Hutton, and his inspiration on his own farm (with respect to geology). I missed the pumpkin trebuchet, so can’t mention the physics of flinging a pumpkin as far and accurately as possible, but down on the farm it seems like biology, and indeed other sciences, stare you in the face oftentimes.

What a spoiled brat I am- I am in Barcelona at a fantastic and really interesting conference at a fabulous institute. Yet, very deep down, a very small part of me is sad and slightly wistful.

Psychologically it’s hard not to feel at least a little disconnected being away from New York when the Yankees are at a critical moment in the play offs, meeting a tough opponent while I’m out of town in cold pursuit of intellectual stimulation!

Luckily the evil empire spreads its tentacles far, so maybe I’ll see a Yankee hat at some point here. Maybe I can even watch the score and tweets tonight (possibly the game itself if queazy old Mac’s up to it?). This will also help reset my circadian cycles back to my normal time zone at the same time. A double play!

to explain this year with respect to Nobel Prizes, or apparently anyway. Was it me or did the news casters today breathe a sigh of relief as they discussed fiber optics, cell phones and cameras? So much easier than explaining DNA ends and the potential benefits understanding their maintenance and dysfunction might have. This seemed to generate many more ums, but maybe it was the sources I heard as the news first broke. I felt a little dispirited, telomeres being that amazing!

I love fly gene names as they convey phenotype intuitively (mostly) and in fact I’ve learned a lot by tracking down the origins of names. E.g…..

Animals: I first learned what a pangolin was.

Vegetables: new to me prior to following up on the names were spatzle, spaghetti squash and zucchini (which I used to call a courgette).

Literary figs: Oskar turned out to be a diminutive figure from Günter Grass novel The Tin Drum (and Bruno his “repressor”) and Smaug a dragon in, well, you know.

And (not to be missed) ways of abusing diminutive people in other languages: pumilio, nanos, knirps. I draw the line at Kruppel.

All was right with the world until yesterday, when I bought a red Kuri, or Hokkaido squash (yes, the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness is apparently happening somewhere off Manhattan). To my shock, several internet recipes call it a Knirps. Which leaves me wondering what’s the mutant named after, squash or “squib” and can I still use knirps liberally on International Blasphemy Day?

By the way it was cooked up deliciously by my friend with some thyme, feta and a lotta garlic.

As I write leaders are gathering in New York (I’m not talking about the blogospherical (?) leader Eva). This is the prelude to Copenhagen and government and business leaders are gathering in a bid to make that meeting successful, but the forecast is still cloudy with a chance of baloney, to refer to the climate shenanigans film the US is crowding to see this weekend. I’m worried about sounding preachy here (and perhaps you’re converted in any case), but addressing climate change is one of the fights of our generation. While leaders have very real and pressing vested interests in important factors such as their economy, and I know there’s no easy solution, it’s also increasingly frustrating that common ground cannot be found after so much discussion and time.

Saturday evening I watched the big fight (mixed martial arts). It’s not everyone’s cup of tea but the point is these guys go in swinging and fighting as if everything is on the line regardless of risk to themselves. I hope to see that attitude aimed at curbing climate change in Copenhagen, given everything actually is on the line.

The tck tck tck campaign is organizing events to raise awareness this week, and climate week NYC is staging events around the city. I went to a concert over the weekend where I was urged to recycle glass.

I grew up speaking and hearing two languages, English and Punjabi. Presumably this early plasticity made the relevant regions and areas of my brain adept at picking up new languages at school. Languages have a logic to them and follow strong rules that make it easy to find your way around, at least amongst the romantics (excluding quaint lil old english whose idiosyncrasies and rule-breaks are tough, leaving you out on a bough and tempted to bow out having had enough of a slough (cough)).

My favorite language yet to be learned is greek. I love that as a potent side effect of a science and math education you can read the mystical glyphs, know your thetas from your psis and can announce all-knowingly that that’s the bus to Θεσσαλονίκη!

New York, of course, is a veritable hotbed of spoken languages and the guy next to me on the subway yesterday was learning “Some words in Macedonian”. I’m pretty hard-pressed to see the everyday use of the particular set of words, listed in this order on his steno pad (I didn’t catch the Macedonian, I’ve added the greek to give you a general feel for the moment):

Death θάνατος
Bright weather ηλιόλουστος
Minor god of healing Δάῤῥων
Pikes used in a Macedonian phalanx λούτσοι

Κϒδοσ to anyone who can use these in a complete and congruous sentence that’s not pretentiously Homerian…………..doh!

my garbage into muddy stuff! Depressing as it is, a typical graduate living in New York has no compost heap. We’ve managed to reduce our waste stream by recycling a lot, but organic waste remains a guilt trip to the garbage bin.

But hurrah for red worms! Over the summer I’ve been freezing veggie waste. At regular intervals potfuls have headed over to feed these guys living in their “worm condo” in an undisclosed location nearby (I deemed them too smelly to come live in a studio apartment with me). They’ve spent the summer hols chomping down on my garbage. Slowly but surely, we’re generating soil as opposed to fill for the landfill, reducing our waste stream to something that bit closer to a trickle. Chordates and annelids win all round.

Worm condo complete with eggshells and man hand, photo courtesy of J. McClintock

Last week a huge storm struck. Out of nowhere, the tree outside started whipping back and forth and huge sheets of rain drove at the window. It’s not often that New York’s suddenly pelted by 80mph winds. Though the very high winds lasted only 5 minutes, within hours the scale of damage to nearby Central Park was obvious. At first it was thought 100 trees had fallen, by the end of the week estimates of 500 or more lost trees.

Going for a run in the Park over the weekend, the smell of rot and sawing hung in the air as trees that had been completely uprooted or torn through the trunk were removed. The towering pile of woodchips was unexpectedly heartrending. My favorite willows are still standing, as are many of the younger saplings, but denuded of some limbs.

The trees that fell were old, some revealing rot in their trunks, and thank goodness the damage was quite local (mostly in the 90’s near to us), but this is nature having its way with even a manmade park. At some point old trees fall and flexible saplings that bend take their place- that’s what happens in a living breathing ecosystem, even one as cultivated as Central Park.

At a rough estimate I spend maybe 30% of my time working. This is an underestimate as there are those sneak peeks at email when I’m not working, but I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t feel it was worth it. What makes work valuable (beyond the obvious)? When does work become “degraded”? Is there an ideal type of work?

“Shop class as soul craft” by Matthew B. Crawford attempts to address such questions. Crawford argues against pushing people into “knowledge work”, instead advocating for manual work in “the trades”. Science pops up a couple of times in the book, not always rosily rendered.

Crawford has degrees in physics and philosophy, worked in academia for some time, and now works as a mechanic fixing motorbikes, a profession he argues for in lieu of careers dealing in abstract knowledge, working on the assembly line, and cubicle work.

He recalls how his physicist father told him a shoelace could be untied with a pull at one end, then realized he was “speaking of a mathematical string, which is an idealized” situation. This seemed unsatisfactory given that hands-on practical experience and physical circumstances can shed more light on how a shoelace behaves. To me though, scientific pursuits are absolutely grounded in the vagaries and deviations of reality. Indeed, they actually employ similar problem solving skills to those that fixing a motorbike, I imagine, would. A background of abstract knowledge is needed, true, but often very real world, practical skills are needed, as well as hands on trouble-shooting that is enhanced by previous experience, for example with particular methods. In addition science transcends boundaries as new knowledge is gained (microRNAs unmasked, promoters probed etc). And while theoretical physics may appear to operate on abstract planes, isn’t it still related to and rooted in the real world?

He also describes a previous stint of cubicle work (a staple work-mode in New York where this book has received some attention). He was expected to read and write abstracts for 15 scientific articles a day (illustrates the work he did with a summary of a Nature Genetics paper) to summarize knowledge for others. I myself would also find this difficult to do. Abstracts and summaries are important and I do write them all the time, but at 15 a day it would be hard to weigh, enjoy and appreciate the knowledge gained in a given paper.

I don’t agree with everything the author advocates, some of the other views expressed aren’t consistent with my politics (or gender), but I think the question is one worth asking and I found it interesting to read a philosophical viewpoint. Crawford ends by saying he’s found his niche in being a mechanic as it satisfies criteria he values (he is responsible for his own work, there are clear standards and it is contextualized and face-to-face) but points out others might find these values fulfilled elsewhere. For me personally, discussion and examination of science and the dissemination of knowledge fulfill these values.